Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Lord Dunboyne

Other loyal and half loyal partisans were less energetic than Cosby. Lord Dunboyne complained that his manor of Fishmoyne in Tipperary had been plundered by the O’Carrolls and O’Meaghers, and this because he had discharged his men by the Lord Deputy’s orders. Bellingham retorted that his lordship lied in his throat; for he had bidden him to entertain true men instead of rebels, and to discharge no one unless it could be done safely. He had particularly cautioned him against ‘rashly discharging such as have been malefactors as your gallowglasses were, and naturally as their captains were.’328

Pirates

While the frontiers of the Pale were harassed by robbers, the loyal ports of the south were in constant dread of pirates. A rover named Eagle blockaded Kinsale, which was half depopulated by an epidemic, and another, named Colley, established himself in a castle belonging to Barry Oge, whose aunt he married, so that the poor town was quite shut up. Cork, the citizens told Bellingham, was so well defended by marshes and waters, ‘besides walls and towers which we do build daily, that we do not fear all the Irishmen in Ireland and English rebels also, if there be any such, until such time as your wisdom would repair hither for our refuge.’ John Tomson, a noted rover, visited both Cork and Waterford. According to the authorities of the latter city he had ‘one saker of 16-foot long, having four chambers, so that we do not see how he may be apprehended.’ In an affray between the citizens and an armed French vessel Tomson took part with the foreigner, and the pursuit of them cost Waterford 1,000l. This formidable water-thief was taken by O’Sullivan Bere, who made him pay a large ransom. Afterwards Bellingham rather oddly allowed the Cork men to trade with Tomson, because it seemed possible that he had received pardon, and because the goods then on board did not appear to be stolen. Wine, figs, and sugar were, however, the wares offered by Tomson and his ally Stephenson, and it is most likely that they had been stolen at sea from the Portuguese. Tomson used the occasion to refit and to repair his weapons, and the Waterford men called upon the Mayor of Cork to apprehend the pirates; but that prudent official refused to do so without special orders from Bellingham. Pirates were unpleasant people to deal with. A gang confined at Waterford broke their gyves, nearly murdered a fellow-prisoner, and with many ‘cracks’ and menaces threatened to burn the gaol.329

Their daring outrages

A pirate named Smith sailed into Youghal, but seems to have taken nothing but loose rigging and spars. He had long infested these waters, seemingly with no more than six men, armed with guns and bows. The Youghal fishermen took heart, and by a combined attack succeeded in capturing Smith. Other pirates named Cole, Butside, and Strangwych are mentioned as active about this time. They were all English, but the trade was by no means confined to any one nation; for Sir Philip Hoby, the English ambassador at the imperial court, was instructed to apply for help to suppress a squadron of twenty sail, manned by lawless desperadoes of all countries, who infested the Irish coast, and robbed the Emperor’s subjects. Logan, a Scotch professor of the art, and a survivor from Lennox’s expedition, haunted the coast about Howth, and took several vessels. Power and Gough, who robbed a Portuguese ship in Waterford harbour, and ruined the foreign trade of that port, were probably of Irish birth. Desmond, on whom the honorary office of Lord Treasurer, held by the late Earl of Ormonde, had already been conferred, received a commission from Lord Admiral Seymour to exercise his jurisdiction along the coast from Dungarvan to Galway. The men of the latter town said they could defend themselves against all Irishmen coming by land, but that they had not a single piece of artillery to resist attacks from the sea. They professed unswerving loyalty, as did their neighbours of Limerick, and Bellingham thanked the latter for their efforts to keep the Burkes quiet, ‘in whom,’ he said, ‘the obstinacy is found to break this order, you the King’s our own most dear sovereign lord’s and master’s subjects, the mayor, brethren, and council of Limerick shall proceed to the first and lawful redress and punishment thereof.’330

Bellingham’s campaign in Leix, 1548

Before Bellingham came to Ireland a hosting into Leix had been proclaimed, and he carried it out promptly. The men of Drogheda were required to furnish a strong contingent, having ‘caused to be mustered all such as are meet for the war without partiality.’ They had also to furnish carts, of which it seems the town could only boast three, and there were complaints of the stringency of Bellingham’s requisitions; but he said he would rather they were unfurnished than he. The Drogheda men did very good service, and the carts, which were duly paid for, were employed to carry pioneers’ tools. The soldiers were thus enabled without excessive fatigue to cut passes through woods, and make causeways over bogs. After a thirty days’ campaign in Leix, Bellingham resolved that a town should be built in Leix, and in the meantime was erected Fort Governor or Protector, in the place where Maryborough now stands. The citizens of Dublin were required to assist in making it practicable for soldiers to act upon the border of Kildare; but they made excuses, saying that men could not carry arms and tools as well. Bellingham sarcastically refuted their argument, ‘in which your experience bitterly condemneth my ignorance.’ Let them send carts as the Drogheda men had done, and then one man could do the work of two.331

Bellingham routs the O’Connors

In August 1548 Cahir O’Connor, who still kept some force about him, invaded Kildare. Nicholas Bagenal, Marshal of the army, fell in with the marauders, and rescued the cattle taken, though his men were in the proportion of one to sixteen. Cahir retreated with his troop, and with a multitude of camp followers and ‘slaves,’ who carried their food to what was considered an unassailable position. Bellingham was not far off, and he ordered Saintloo to attack them wherever he could find them. Accompanied by Travers, Brereton, and Cosby, Saintloo tracked them to a spot surrounded by a bog. The soldiers struggled manfully through the moss until they reached hard ground, and a great butchery followed. The oldest man in Ireland had, as Bellingham supposed, never seen so many wood-kerne slain in one day. Such was the slaughter, says this precursor of Cromwell, that none escaped but by mistake, or hiding them in ambush, ‘such was the great goodness of God to deliver them into our hands.’ The Old Testament in English was beginning to make its mark upon language and upon habits of thought.332

Disturbances in Munster. Foreign rumours

Munster was much disturbed. Edmund Tyrry, the King’s bailiff at Cork, had a dispute with some of the Barries about land. The Earl of Desmond was appealed to, and he took Tyrry to Lord Barrymore, desiring the latter to do him justice. Barrymore took the bailiff with him to his court-baron, or ‘parliament,’ and the case was partly heard and adjourned to a future day. On his return journey towards Cork, Tyrry was waylaid and murdered. Bellingham demanded justice, and Lord Barrymore, after some months’ delay, gave up the murderers, who were doubtless duly executed. But the Barry country continued to be the scene of frequent outrages. Lord Barrymore went out one day in the early winter to drive the cattle of some wild Irishmen, and met with certain other wild Irish who were going to spoil his tenants. A fight followed, and the Barries ‘killed incontinently little lack of fourscore of them,’ wherewith, said the Corporation of Cork, ‘we be glad, and so is the Earl of Desmond.’ But Bellingham was not satisfied with Desmond’s conduct, nor easy about the future. James Delahide, always the herald of a storm, was in Ireland, and probably with the Earl. Gerald of Kildare might appear again; and there were rumours that the French meditated a descent and the establishment of a fortified port at Skerries to command the passage to Scotland. These fears were not realised; but there were frequent communications between Desmond and the O’Briens, and Bellingham took steps to have everything reported to him. This vigilance perhaps prevented the Munster chiefs from moving.333

Anarchy in Connaught. Garrison at Athlone

The death of the newly-created Earl of Clanricarde revived the normal anarchy of Connaught. Ulick Burke was acknowledged as captain by the Government and by some of the inhabitants during the minority of the Earl’s son Richard. But another Richard, the heir’s illegitimate brother, gave so much trouble that Sir Dermot O’Shaughnessy, and other well-disposed chiefs, demanded that the young Earl should be settled in possession, and that Commissioners should be sent to Galway for the purpose. The false Richard was, however, allowed to rule his own immediate district, but not without strong hints from Bellingham that what the King gave the King could take away. Burke was reminded that he had apprehended no notable malefactor, and that the Lord Deputy would quarrel with no honest Irishman for his sake. Bellingham had neither time nor force to give to the West, and the towns of Limerick and Galway had very indifferent success in their efforts to keep the peace. But the chief governor’s reputation for justice was not without effect even in Connaught. ‘Your lordship’s famous proceedings,’ wrote the Archbishop of Tuam, ‘being divolgated throughout all Ireland, to the great fear of misdoers and malefactors all through the country hereabouts now needing reformation, more than heretofore, all for lack of justice among them to be observed.’ Bellingham established a garrison at Athlone, which overawed the O’Kellys and O’Melaghlins; but little progress was made beyond the Shannon. Robert Dillon, the lawyer, was the Lord Deputy’s civil substitute, but the sword was necessarily in the Baron of Delvin’s hands, who did all he could to prevent Dillon from sending messengers to Dublin. The central districts of Ireland between the Pale and the great river were at this time the theatre of constant war, and in this an English, or Anglo-Norman, adventurer figures conspicuously.334

Edmond Fay

Edmond Fay, who seems to have had property at Cadamstown, in the King’s County, and to have claimed more than the natives were willing to allow him, was called into Westmeath by O’Melaghlin to aid him against his enemies. The confederates gained some successes, and occupied, among other places, the historic castle of Kincora. ‘Edmond,’ say the ‘Four Masters,’ ‘then continued to conquer Delvin in the King’s name in opposition to O’Melaghlin; and thus had O’Melaghlin brought a rod into the country to strike himself, for Edmond a Faii expelled and banished himself and all his tribe out of Delvin, just as the young swarm expels the old.’ Fay, who was to some extent supported by the Government, and who had soldiers with him, drove the MacCoghlans across the Shannon, and made himself master of most of the country between Athlone and Slievebloom. Not satisfied with this he proposed to attack the O’Carrolls, who joined the MacCoghlans, and expelled him from his recent conquests. Fay called on the Government for help, and the whole county, on both sides of the Brosna, was burned and plundered by the troops, to whom no resistance was attempted. The Irish demolished Banagher and other castles to prevent their being occupied, and this became a general practice in like cases. Cadamstown was afterwards taken by the O’Carrolls, and Fay returned to his original obscurity. He seems to have had the keep of Thady Roe, or the Red Captain, a noted leader of mercenaries, who held possession of Nenagh. The O’Carrolls burned the monastery and town, but the castle defied their power.335

The Pale is freed from rebels

Towards the close of 1548 Alen was able to report that there were only about a dozen rebels on the borders of the Pale. O’Connor had surrendered at discretion, and his life was spared in the hope of inducing O’More to follow his example. Alen advised that they should be removed from Ireland, and that work should be found for them at Calais or Boulogne. ‘There are in all,’ he told Paget, ‘not twelve persons wherewith your honour to make a maundie, for when Christ ministered at His last supper there were twelve, of whom one was a traitor, and of these ye may have twelve together at one table.’336

The coinage. A mint

The Plantagenet kings had made no difference in the coinage of England and Ireland; but in 1460 – when Richard, Duke of York, was Lord Lieutenant – the Parliament of Drogheda, with the express intention of loosening the tie between the two islands, declared that coins intrinsically worth threepence should be struck in Ireland and pass for fourpence. There was afterwards a further degradation, and the money struck by Henry VIII. consisted at last of one-half, or even two-thirds, alloy. ‘New coins were introduced into Ireland,’ say the ‘Four Masters,’ with pardonable exaggeration, ‘that is, copper, and the men of Ireland were obliged to use it as silver.’ Dishonesty had its proverbial reward, for trade was thrown into confusion and general discontent engendered. The Corporation of Galway more than once besought Bellingham to force the new money on the captain of Clanricarde and Donnell O’Flaherty. The Corporation of Kinsale made the same request as to the Courcies, Barries, and MacCarthies. This was, of course, beyond Bellingham’s power, and the Protector went on coining regardless of Irish complaints. Thomas Agard was Treasurer of the Dublin Mint, and exercised his office independently of the Lord Deputy. He was originally in Cromwell’s service, and his position not unnaturally brought him into collision with Lord Leonard Grey, who accused him of making mischief. Agard, however, said that Grey, ‘which is my heavy lord,’ oppressed him out of spite, because he opposed the Geraldine faction, and prevented him from setting up broad looms and dye-works in Dublin. With the politic St. Leger he got on better, but Bellingham, whose temper was quite as despotic as Grey’s, was much disgusted at the independence of the Mint. Agard leaned to the Puritan side, and praised Bellingham’s godly proceedings. God is with you, he wrote to him, and with all good Christians who love God and their King, with much more of the same sort. But the Lord Deputy was not conciliated, and accused Agard of cooking his accounts, and of embezzling 2,000l. He was not superseded, and was entrusted with the congenial task of melting down chalices and crosses, and of turning them into bad money. The home authorities chose to make Agard independent in his office; but the stronger nature triumphed, and the King’s auditor reported that the Treasurer of the Mint dared not for his life speak of his business to any but the Lord Deputy. The debased currency caused much speculation of an undesirable kind. Thus, Francis Digby, who had a licence to export Irish wool, found it pay much better to buy up plate with the current coin and sell it in England for sterling money. Others took the cue, and it became necessary to issue a proclamation. It was, of course, no more possible to prevent the exportation of silver than to change the ebb and flow of the tides.337

Bellingham’s haughty bearingHis rash letters to Somerset,

In November Bellingham paid a short visit to Dublin, where he found Lady Ormonde with her new husband, Sir Francis Bryan, who had a commission as Lord Marshal of Ireland. Bryan, ‘the man of youthful conditions,’ as Roger Ascham called him, was particularly recommended by the Privy Council to Alen, who could not understand what Henry VIII. had seen in him worthy of great promotion. Bellingham hated him from the first, and Alen thought he would have the same feeling to any one who had married Lady Ormonde. We have no means of knowing whether he was in love with her, or whether he hated her, or whether he merely disliked the alliance as likely to clip his own wings. His idea of the rights and dignity of his position was high and even excessive, and was asserted with a fine disregard of prudence. To Somerset he complained that his credit was bad, and that he was despised in Ireland because he was thought to have no power to reward those who had done good service. He begged that they might be ‘fed with some thereof, which no doubt it is great need of, for the wisest sort have ever found that good service in Ireland has been less considered of any place.’

to Warwick, and to Seymour

In writing to Warwick his words were still stronger, and he complained bitterly at the slight put on him in the matter of the mint. ‘I am,’ he said, ‘at your honourable lordship’s commandment; but in respect I am the King’s Deputy, your good lordship may determine surely that I will have none exempt from my authority in Ireland’s ground, but sore against my will.’ He had not spent the King’s treasure in gambling or riotous living, nor in buying land for himself. The King’s responsible servants in Ireland were neglected, and credit given to backstairs’ suitors ‘coming in by the windows,’ which did more harm than all the rebels and Irishry in the realm. Some of Warwick’s letters had hurt him, whereas the true policy would be to let men ‘know that I am the King’s Deputy, so that they shall think when they have my favours things go well with them, and the contrary when they have them not.’ These letters, and another to Seymour, gave great, and not unnatural offence, so that Bellingham was fain to beg the admiral’s pardon and intercession with Warwick. Some measure of the serpent’s wisdom is necessary to those who fill great offices.338

Bellingham and the Irish

If Bellingham could thus treat the most powerful men in England, he was not likely to mince matters with those whom he could touch. ‘Bring yourself,’ said the Lord Deputy to O’Molloy, who had wrongfully detained the property of a kinswoman, ‘out of the slander of the people by making prompt restitution, or have your contempt punished as to your deserts shall appertain.’ To the Earl of Thomond, who had promised to bring in Calough O’Carroll but had not done so, he wrote a noble letter, but a very imprudent one, considering the character and position of the chief whom he addressed. Calough O’Carroll, he said, had brought his troubles on himself by allowing his men to plunder, and by refusing to give them up; he should be well plagued for it according to promise, until he and his brother found means to come and seek their own pardon. The O’Carrolls submitted and were pardoned.339

Bellingham and his Council

Bellingham was above all things a soldier, and he treated his Council, consisting for the most part of lawyers, in a very high-handed manner. His old friend Alen remonstrated, and there is no reason to doubt him here, though he had a way of quarrelling with successive Deputies. Alen admitted that Bellingham was quite free from pecuniary self-seeking, but thought he had more than his share of the other sin which beset chief governors, ambition namely, and the longing to rule alone. He had said that it would be a good deed to hang the whole Council, and he kept the members waiting for hours among the servants in the ante-room. Alen he accused personally of feigning sickness when bent on mischief. Others he threatened to commit if they offended him, reminding them that he could make or mar their fortunes. When angry he frequently sent men to a prison without any warrant of law; ‘and I myself,’ said the Chancellor, ‘except I walk warily, look for none other but some time with the King’s seal with me to take up my lodging in the castle of Dublin.’ The Council had become a lifeless, spiritless corpse, for Bellingham could hear no advice without threats and taunts. It is not surprising that Privy Councillors feared to speak frankly, and forced themselves to wait until this tyranny should be overpast.340

Bellingham seizes Desmond

To a Lord Deputy so jealous for the dignity of his office nothing could be more distasteful than the power of the House of Ormonde, which was now wielded by the Countess and her husband. The Sheriff of Kildare gave a most galling proof of this power by begging that his communications with Bellingham might be kept secret for fear of Lady Ormonde’s displeasure. She claimed the right to keep gallowglasses in Kilkenny, and the Lord Deputy infinitely disliked this practice, which had prevailed for centuries. He wished to keep the young Earl in England, lest by living at home he should imbibe exaggerated notions of his own importance. ‘His learning and manners,’ he said, ‘would be nothing amended, and the King’s authority thereby be nought the more obeyed.’ By remaining in England till he was of discreet years, he might learn willingly to abandon his ‘usurped insufferable rule, which I trust he will do yet in time to come.’ Any assumption of independence on the part of a subject irritated Bellingham excessively; and when Desmond, whose manners he stigmatised as detestable, neglected his summons, he set out quietly from Leighlin with a small party of horse, rode rapidly into Munster, surprised Desmond sitting by the fire in one of his castles, and carried him off to Dublin. He set himself to instruct the rude noble in civilisation and in the nature of the royal authority, sometimes, if we may believe the chronicler, ‘making him kneel upon his knees an hour together before he knew his duty.’ This discipline, accompanied doubtless with kind treatment in other ways, seems to have answered so well, that, according to the same authority, Desmond ‘thought himself most happy that ever he was acquainted with the said Deputy, and did for ever after so much honour him, as that continually all his life at every dinner and supper he would pray for the good Sir Edward Bellingham; and at all callings he was so obedient and dutiful, as none more in that land.’341

Ireland quiet. Garrison at Leighlin Bridge

At the beginning of the year 1549 the Privy Council thanked Bellingham for having brought Ireland to a good state. They charged him to aid Tyrone against the Scots, and to be on his guard against French enterprises undertaken under colour of trading. The forts erected where Maryborough and Philipstown now are kept Leix and Offaly quiet. Breweries were at work under the shadow of both, and it was proposed to start a tan-yard at Fort Protector, as Maryborough was for the moment called. Bellingham established another post, which became very important, to command the road from Dublin to Kilkenny, and thus make the Government less dependent on the House of Ormonde. The suppressed Carmelite convent at Leighlin Bridge required but little alteration, and the Barrow ceased to be a serious obstacle. The Lord Deputy kept twenty or thirty horses here with the greatest difficulty, the hay having to be brought from Carlow through a disturbed country. Irishmen were willing to settle and to make an example of peaceful cultivation, but they were in great fear of Lady Ormonde. Walter Cowley, formerly Solicitor-General and fomenter of discord between St. Leger and the late Earl, had little good to say of the no longer disconsolate widow, but praised Sir Francis Bryan for saying that he would not ‘borrow of the law as my Lord of Ormonde did.’ The expression was called forth by the action of the Idrone Ryans, who were frightened by the inquiries into tenure, and came to Lady Ormonde offering to convey their lands to her and her heirs; the object being to defeat the Act of Absentees. No doubt the cultivators would have been glad to pay an easy rent to a powerful neighbour, rather than have an active new landlord such as Cosby thrust upon them. Sir Richard Butler, some of whose misdeeds have been already mentioned, built a castle in O’More’s country without any title, and overawed the whole district of Slievemargy.342

Progress of the Reformation. Browne and Staples

Doctrinal Protestantism was not formally promulgated in Bellingham’s time; but the recognition of the royal supremacy was pretty general, for he would allow no disobedience. The Treasurer of St. Patrick’s, who was refractory, was severely reprimanded, and threatened with condign punishment. A Scot who preached at Kilmainham condemned the Mass, and Archbishop Browne, whose opinions were not perhaps quite fixed, was accused of inveighing against the stranger, and of maintaining that those who sided with him were ‘not the King’s true subjects.’ Means were, however, taken to spread the order of service which Browne had set on foot. The Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ave Maria were read and circulated in English, but the Mass was retained; a confused arrangement which could not last. Still, the men who controlled the Government and the young King were known to be favourable to the new doctrines, and the Scots emissary soon found a distinguished follower in the Bishop of Meath. Staples had at one time certainly held opinions less advanced than those of Browne, but he now went to Dublin and preached a strong Protestant sermon against the Mass. On returning to his own diocese he found that he had incurred universal hatred. An Irishman, whose infant he had christened and named after himself, desired to have the child re-baptized, ‘for he would not have him bear the name of a heretic.’ A gentleman refused to have his child confirmed ‘by him that denied the sacrament of the altar.’ The gossips in the market-place at Navan declared that if the Bishop came to preach there they would stay away, lest they should learn to be heretics. A lawyer in the neighbourhood told a crowd of people that Staples deserved to be burned, ‘for if I preached heresy so was I worthy to be burned, and if I preached right yet was I worthy that kept the truth from knowledge.’ ‘This gentleman,’ Staples quaintly adds, ‘loveth no sodden meat, but can skill only of roasting.’ Another lawyer, a judge, said it should be proved before the Bishop’s face that he preached against learning. The following is too interesting to omit: – ‘A beneficed man of mine own promotion came unto me weeping and desired me that he might declare his mind unto me without my displeasure. I said I was well content. My Lord, said he, before ye went last to Dublin ye were the best beloved man in your diocese that ever came in, and now ye are the worst beloved that ever came here. I asked why? “Why,” saith he, “ye have taken open part with the State that false heretic, and preached against the sacrament of the altar, and deny saints, and will make us worse than Jews: if the country wist how they would eat you;” and he besought me to take heed of myself, for he feared more than he durst tell me. “Ye have,” he said, “more curses than ye have hairs of your head, and I advise you for Christ sake not to preach at the Navan as I hear ye will do.” I said it was my charge to preach, and because there was most resort (God willing) I would not fail but preach there. Hereby ye may perceive what case I am in, but I put all to God.’ The Bishop spoke as became his office, but he was ‘afraid of his life divers ways.’343